


A Birthday Present From Me to Myself

by mynameisntburgerpants



Series: The mynameisntburgerpants Anthology [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, domestic angst, lots of things probably won't make sense unless you've read the first one, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 10:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15906519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisntburgerpants/pseuds/mynameisntburgerpants
Summary: Burgerpants finally makes good on a promise to himself.





	A Birthday Present From Me to Myself

It was that time of year again! Jon's birthday was coming up, in the year of our lord two thousand and eighteen. The call he made to his moms last year was not much more than a bandaid, and if anything he felt worse afterwards--but then, that's hardly surprising considering how he handled the whole thing. Still, as the day approached he felt those same pangs of guilt, his nightmares started acting up once more, and Jon was filled with a renewed drive to get this all over with once more. The stars even aligned such that the day he had the energy to set things right would fall on a day he already had off at the MTT-Brand Burger Emporium. The trouble, then, was convincing himself to act on it. For how much of a skeptic Burgerpants made himself out to be, sometimes the person he had the hardest time trusting was himself.  
  
If nothing else, last year's attempt to establish contact put his foot in the door to try again. Ma and mama had set his birthday aside to grieve; if they were really being nice to him so it'd sting more to hurt him later, they wouldn't have even taken note of his birthday once he was out of the picture. For once in his life, Jon felt...perhaps guilty about abandoning them? He didn't want to admit it, he thought he was acting in his best interest to get away from them, but the more the evidence stacked up, the more he realized he was...wrong. And if there was one thing Jon hated, it was admitting he was wrong, even if only to himself. Yet a small part of him, an inkling at first but soon gaining traction, wanted to be wrong. It was too late to take back the life he didn't allow himself to have, but the least he could do was try.  
  
Jon's finger hovered over the "call" button on his cell phone--  
  
"For god's sake, Jon," he thought to himself, "you've left them hanging since last year! You've known they were feeling this way for a year and you've only just now thought to stop beating around the bush and actually do something!" Normally Jon would try to stop himself as he got into the swing of berating himself for things that have already happened, but there really wasn't anything else to blame but himself for his inaction. He tried and tried to reach for something, anything, to put something other than himself to blame. All he had was that his birth family was outright evil towards him, but those were still _his_ trust issues that _he_ needed to work past, given how hard it was becoming to reconcile his distrust of his fellow monster with reality. All this culminated in the realization that he needed to rip the band-aid off, and he needed to do it now or it would eat at him for the rest of his days.  
  
Throwing caution to the wind, Jon smashed his finger into the touch screen on his phone.  
  
First dial tone. The dread of realizing Jon had locked himself into this was almost too much to handle, but he made this bed, and damned if he wasn't going to lie in it.  
  
Second dial tone. The long, droning noise filled Jon's ears, filled his psyche, was almost maddening in its own right when he just wanted to get things over with.  
  
Third dial tone. Jon's breathing hitched up. He was already looking for an out, and already kicking himself for the cowardice of such a thought process.  
  
" **Hello,** " a mechanical voice piped up on the other end, " **you've reached the household of:** SAPPHIRE AND ORPHID WALSH. **Please leave your name, number, and a message after the tone.** "  
  
Jon felt his SOUL sinking into his chest. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or exasperated, and it shone through on his ever-expressive face, even if no one was around to see it. He had mustered up all this courage, he finally scrounged up the energy to set the record straight, and he was met with an answering machine. The absolute _nerve_ of circumstances to line up in this way, almost as though the universe was specifically spiting Jon in particular. He didn't know when he'd feel up to something like this again! Jon reached back to hurl his phone at the wall, but heard something that caught his attention and stopped his impulse right in his tracks.  
  
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," started a familiar voice, "I was just getting out of the shower when I heard the phone ringing! This is Sapphire, who do I owe the pleasure?"  
  
The part of Jon that wanted this all over with was relieved, but the part of him that was clawing for an excuse to just hang up on the spot was mortified. He recalled last year when he called and said nothing before hanging up, like some kind of weirdo, as his own ma mistook him for a telemarketer. He had to say something, he had to say anything! Get his foot in the door or let this all slip between his fingers! All that escaped the back of Jon's throat was a faint, slightly hesitant "hi," but at this point he was willing to work with that.  
  
"...Hello? Yes? Can I help you?" There was a faint concern to Sapphire's voice permeating her initial attempt at a jovial response. Was this person in danger or just shy? Hard for her to tell at this point.  
  
"It's..." Jon had to clear his throat before he could even think to continue. "It's me, your son." Tears were already welling up in his eyes; he was already overwhelmed, assaulted from all directions by emotions he didn't want to subject himself to.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that, I thought you said 'my son.'" Sapphire felt her voice almost cracking. Surely this random caller didn't really say that, she was just grasping for a sliver of hope as her long-missing son's birthday was coming up. "Is...is that right?"  
  
"Yeah, it is." Jon briefly trailed off, his mindscape too much of an incoherent, chaotic whirlwind to pull any words longer than a single syllable from his vocabulary. "I want to come home." There they were, the five magic words that Sapphire was looking for and that Jon was having so much trouble putting together.  
  
"I'm...I feel like such a failure of a mother." She wanted to apologize, she wanted to come up with whatever reason she could think of why she or her wife could've driven Jon to run away, but she couldn't find the words. Whatever she did must have been such a fundamental misunderstanding of how parenting worked that she'd never truly unlearn it.  
  
"I'm sorry" came from both ends of the phone line, and both sides wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  
  
"You didn't do anything wrong. You're talking to a failure of a son here. I mean, look at me! I barely scrape by at a fast food restaurant. More people know me as 'Burgerpants' than my real name, and you think you're the failure between us two?" Jon choked out a weak chuckle.  
  
"Yes, but..." Sapphire hated struggling for the right words, but just hearing her son's voice again gave her the resolve to continue. "I don't think any less of you. Is...is it alright if you stop by here someday? Make up for lost time?" Jon had to stop and breathe for a moment. It...really was this easy, and he really did spend this long waiting.  
  
"Call it a date."


End file.
